[Marxism] What's new at Links: John Bellamy Foster, Michael Lebowitz on Marx, economic crisis, Venezuela, Philippines, Pakistan, Caribbean strikes, Marx the ecologist, Tamils, Zimbabwe

[glparramatta <glparramatta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

What's new at Links: John Bellamy Foster, Michael Lebowitz on Marx, 
economic crisis, Venezuela, Philippines, Pakistan, Caribbean strikes, 
Marx the ecologist, Tamils, Zimbabwe

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - 
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed 
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@xxxxxxxxxx

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in /Links/.

* * *


    John Bellamy Foster: `A whole different kind of struggle is
    emerging' <http://links.org.au/node/925>

*J**ohn Bellamy Foster* is editor of /Monthly Review/ and professor of 
sociology at the University of Oregon. He is the coauthor with Fred 
Magdoff of /The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences/, 
recently published by Monthly Review Press. This interview was conducted 
by *Mike Whitney* and first appeared at /Dissident Voice/. It has been 
posted at /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ with 
Whitney's permission.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/925>


    `Let us rediscover Marx' -- Two talks on Michael Lebowitz's `Beyond
    Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class'
    <http://links.org.au/node/921>

By *Michael A. Lebowitz*
[Michael Lebowitz will be a featured guest at the /World at a 
Crossroads/ conference, to be held in Sydney, Australia, on April 10-12, 
2009, organised by the Democratic Socialist Perspective, Resistance and 
/Green Left Weekly/. Visit http://www.worldATACrossroads.org 
<http://www.worldatacrossroads.org/> for full agenda and to book your 
tickets.]
February 16, 2009 -- It is well known that when Karl Marx heard what 
people calling themselves Marxists were saying, he commented, ``all I 
know is that I am not a Marxist''. It is not as well known, however, 
that Marx had little respect for disciples in general. A theory 
disintegrates, he said, when disciples try to ``explain away'' problems 
in the theory -- when they engage in ``crass empiricism'', use ``phrases 
in a scholastic way'', and employ ``cunning argument'' to support the 
theory. A theory disintegrates, he said, when the point of departure of 
the disciples is ``no longer reality'' but the theory that the master 
produced.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/921>


    Economic crisis: Skyrocketing unemployment in Asia hits women and
    young people hardest <http://links.org.au/node/920>

By *Reihana Mohideen*
[Reihana Mohideen will be a featured guest at the /World at a 
Crossroads/ conference, to be held in Sydney, Australia, on April 10-12, 
2009, organised by the Democratic Socialist Perspective, Resistance and 
/Green Left Weekly/. Visit http://www.worldATACrossroads.org 
<http://www.worldatacrossroads.org/> for full agenda and to book your 
tickets.]
February 23, 2009 -- Recent International Labour Organisation (ILO) 
reports on global and regional employment trends paint a stark picture 
of rapidly increasing unemployment in 2008; the situation is expected to 
worsen in 2009 with the prediction of massive job losses. The message is 
clear: workers and the poor are already paying heavily for the 
capitalist economic crisis. Especially hard hit are working-class and 
poor women and young people.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/920>


    Venezuela: Referendum victory advances process of change
    <http://links.org.au/node/927>

By *Chris Kerr*
Caracas, February 20, 2009 -- "Today we opened wide the gates of the 
future ... Truth against lies [and] the dignity of the homeland has 
triumphed", Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez insisted to tens of 
thousands of celebrating supporters after Venezuelans voted to amend the 
constitution to end term limits on all elected politicians --- allowing 
Chavez to stand for re-election in 2012.'' ``Venezuela will not return 
to its past of indignity", Chavez stated, referring to the four decades 
of alternating rule by two corrupt parties that followed the overthrow 
of a military dictatorship in 1958.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/927>


    Pakistan: Punjab provincial government deposed; PPP resorts to
    dictatorial measures <http://links.org.au/node/926>

By *Farooq Tariq*
Lahore, February 27, 2009 -- The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leadership 
has a problem on its hands. There are not many ways to defend the 
governor of Punjab's ruling on February 25, which imposed a two-month 
suspension of the Punjab Assembly. The most respected and moderate 
leader of PPP and chairperson of the Senate, Mian Raza Rubani, justified 
the decision by saying that it was necessary to stop the ``prevailing 
state of anarchy''.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/926>


    General strike shakes France's Caribbean colonies
    <http://links.org.au/node/924>

Introduction by *Richard Fidler*
February 26, 2009 -- /Life on the Left/ -- The general strike in two 
French colonies in the Caribbean is firm, with no end in sight. It began 
in Guadeloupe on January 20 and spread to neighbouring Martinique on 
February 5 as a protest against the high cost of living and, more 
generally, the gross inequality between the conditions of the black 
population and a tiny white elite, descendants of slaveholders, who 
control most industry and agriculture.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/924>


    Karl Marx the ecologist <http://links.org.au/node/923>

By *Simon Butler*
February 21, 2009 -- As the world economy spirals down into its deepest 
crisis since the great depression, the writings of Karl Marx have made a 
return to the top seller lists in bookstores. In his native Germany, the 
sales of Marx's works have trebled. His theories have been treated with 
contempt by conservative economists and historians. Yet, in the context 
of the latest economic downturn, even a few mainstream economists have 
been compelled to ask whether Marx was right after all. Marx argued that 
capitalism is inherently unstable, fraught with contradictions and prone 
to deep crises. Only a move to a democratic socialist society, where 
ordinary people are empowered to make the key decisions about the 
economy and society themselves, can open the path to genuine freedom and 
liberation.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/923>


    Australian Tamils call for ceasefire in Sri Lanka -- sign the crisis
    statement <http://links.org.au/node/922>

In an attempt to put an urgent stop to the humanitarian catastrophe, a 
group of young Tamil Australians have written a Sri Lankan Crisis 
Statement for the wider Australian community to sign.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/922>


    Venezuela: A balance sheet of the constitutional referendum victory
    <http://links.org.au/node/919>

By *Gonzalo Villanueva*
Venezuela's February 15 constitutional amendment referendum, which 
proposed to modify the existing constitution to allow politicians to 
stand for re-election without restrictions, was triumphant. However, the 
referendum was more than a legal amendment -- the removal of term limits 
-- it was a political issue: to continue the revolutionary project or 
not? The Venezuelan people have convincingly signalled their desire to 
continue with the Bolivarian process, under the leadership of Hugo 
Chavez. The victory undoubtedly opens a path to advance and deepen the 
Bolivarian Revolution.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/919>


    Australia: Full agenda for World at a Crossroads conference -
    Fighting for Socialism in the 21st Century
    <http://links.org.au/node/918>

*World at a Crossroads - Fighting for Socialism in the 21st Century*
*Sydney, Australia, April 10-13*

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/918>


    A spectre haunts imperialism ... a rebirth of the left
    <http://links.org.au/node/917>

By *Kavita Krishnan*
[Kavita Krishnan will be a featured guest at the /World at a Crossroads/ 
conference, to be held in Sydney, Australia, on April 10-12, 2009, 
organised by the Democratic Socialist Perspective, Resistance and /Green 
Left Weekly/. Visit http://www.worldATACrossroads.org 
<http://www.worldatacrossroads.org/> for full agenda and to book your 
tickets.]
February 25, 2009 -- The people of the United States (through their vote 
for US President Barack Obama and ``change'') and Iraqi journalist 
Muntadar al-Zaidi alike may have given George W. Bush (and all he stood 
for) the boot -- but India's Congress Party wants to give Bush the 
/Bharat Ratna/![1] Congress Party spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi, 
addressing the annual general meeting of the Federation of Indian 
Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), declared, "Give /Bharat 
Ratna/ to Bush. I don't know what the rules are but I will officially do 
something."

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/917>


    Zimbabwe socialists: Fight for fresh elections under a new
    people-driven constitution! <http://links.org.au/node/916>

February 6, 2009 -- The *International Socialist Organisation Zimbabwe* 
(ISOZ) has consistently argued for the last few years that the poor and 
working people would pay dearly if they naively followed the false calls 
for "change" championed by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and 
its imperialist-supported civic society allies, and subordinated their 
organisations to the same.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/916>

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/915>


    Philippines: 'We need system change', says military rebel
    <http://links.org.au/node/914>

By *Peter Boyle*
February 19, 2009 -- Major Jason Aquino is one of the 28 officers of the 
Armed Forces of the Philippines charged with allegedly attempting a 
mutiny in February 2006. Aquino was detained on February 22 that year 
and held incommunicado in a windowless cell for five months.
I met Major Aquino and several other detained rebel officers in Camp 
Aguinaldo in early February 2009. They were all outspoken against the 
grossly corrupt government of Philippines President Gloria Arroyo, and 
their years of incarceration (as yet without being convicted of a single 
crime) have only deepened their politicisation. But Major Aquino -- who 
has studied the speeches and writings of Fidel Castro and read 
everything he can get his hands on about the revolution in Venezuela led 
by Hugo Chavez -- wanted to make it clear a that he was "not a reformist".

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/914>

* * *

Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information, 
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political 
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for 
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from 
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the 
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social 
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in 
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing 
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at 
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

_______________________________________________
________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu